1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, system and method for authenticating personal identity, a computer readable medium having personal identity authenticating program recorded thereon, a method of registering personal identity authenticating information, a method of verifying personal identity authenticating information, and a recording medium having personal identity authenticating information recorded thereon.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years, a diversity of techniques have been devised to enhance the security of electronic settlement and these techniques are aimed at preventing settlement or charge data on a credit card from being falsified and correctly notifying the credit card issuer of that data.
Meanwhile, making sure whether the person who has a credit card is the true cardholder is another matter. Even if countermeasures are taken so that the settlement or charge data on the card will not be falsified, they will be pointless unless the card is used by the true cardholder. Conventionally, the judgment as to whether the person who has a credit card is the true cardholder is made by judging whether there is matching in handwriting between the signature put to the back of the card and the signature written on a slip by the person. Alternatively, such judgment is made by comparing the person who has the card and the cardholder's identification photograph printed on the credit card.
In the above conventional method of confirming that the person who has a credit card is the true credit cardholder, the following abuse of cards is conceivable as a threat to security. If someone steals a credit card, practices writing a signature to imitate the signature put onto the card, and comes to write it well enough to deceive a clerk or the like, the clerk cannot discriminate between the stealer who has the card and the true cardholder.
On the other hand, the identification photograph may appear to be effective in discriminating between the true cardholder and a different person who has a credit card. However, it is not difficult for the stealer to prepare a fake credit card, attach his or her face photograph to it, and writes the same magnetic signals as encoded on the stolen card onto the fake card.